Stepping Out: Part 4

Contributed by:
Eric Dunaway
small groups pastor

The month of November flew by, as we were caught up in the rush of Life on Purpose, and then thrown into the mix of holiday madness. Now that Life on Purpose is officially behind us, however, I wanted to offer a conclusion to the Stepping Out series, and share a few things I learned as my wife and I stepped up to host a group in our neighborhood this fall.


If you've read the previous posts in this series, (part 1, part 2, part 3) you may recall that we started this group as a way to reach out to our neighbors. Interestingly, however, we ended up with only couple from our neighborhood... and they only came to one meeting. And while it may have taken on a completely different shape than what we had intended, I was thrilled with how this group came together. In fact, we learned a lot and had a lot of fun in our brief time together.

The group itself was an interesting mix of married couples with children, newly weds, engaged young adults, and singles, as well. Demographically, we had some as old as early twenties, and as young as early forties. It was literally across the board, which offered us a unique perspective on group life. Even though our group was spread so wide in demographics and life-stages, we began to discover some very cool connections within the group. First of all, I had officiated the wedding ceremony for the young married couple in our group. They connected immediately with the young engaged couple, whose wedding ceremony I'm also officiating next September. Two weeks in, a young lady in her mid twenties joined our group, who happened to be a neighbor of the engaged couple - they had never met before the group, but soon started carpooling to and from our meetings. These, among others, were just a few neat things that we began to notice were helping the group gel, if only for a short time.

One of the things I often tell new hosts, or facilitators, is that new groups like this - that start from scratch with very little previous connections - will often feel extremely awkward for a little while. Sometimes, in fact, that awkwardness can extend for several weeks. Even though we experienced that awkwardness, it was very short-lived. In fact, it surprised me how quickly people began to open up and share their thoughts and voice their views in the midst of our discussions. As a group, we shared in some great discussions, together. Members spoke openly about their thoughts on things. At some points we disagreed. But I was definitely impressed with the level of honesty and vulnerability the group experienced within those short six weeks.

One of the neatest experiences we had as a group was when we came around the couple in our neighborhood (the ones who only came to one meeting) to support them through a family situation. Her father had just recently had surgery (which was partly why they ended up missing so many meetings). Knowing that she would be going back and forth to the hospital to care for her father, our group decided to provide a meal for them. In fact, there was enough food that our neighbors were taken care of, as well as her parents when her father was released from the hospital. Even though they never came back to the group, they were impacted by the loving care from people they had just met.

Last week, we had our final time together - which also happened to be another one of the neatest experiences with this group. We got together for a time of celebration at the apartment of the young lady who joined our group two weeks in. It was a great time to eat together, as well as laugh together, as we told stories and played Buzz Word. This group decided to part ways, and each of them will hopefully find a new group this winter at the upcoming GroupLaunch. But through those times together, I learned a few key things.

1. Groups don't have to be formed around life-stage or demographic. Mixed Stages groups really can work, even if only for a short time. Which leads me to my second point....
2. Short-term groups have a place. While some would look at the brevity of our group and consider it a failure (I would have been one of them, at one point), I truly believe this group served an important purpose for each one of us. 
3. Leadership is so vital in the longevity of the group. As I said, shorter groups can serve a purpose, as I believe ours did. Still, we see so many benefits to groups that continue meeting for longer stretches of time. When we started this group, we did so with the intent of stepping out once Life on Purpose was finished, and returning to our original group. I wonder if we had offered to keep leading the group, it would have kept the group together. 
4. Connection foundations are also important to the longevity of groups. I may sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, but I'm really not. Yes, Mixed Stages groups can work, and short-term groups have their place. As I said, however, our hope is that groups will stay together longer than just six weeks. And while group leadership factors into that, so do connection foundations. And what I mean by that is simply that there's a foundation upon which group members can find common points of connections - i.e. stage of life, demographics, location, etc. I honestly feel that had our group had more commonalities, they would have continued meeting without me as their leader.
5. Sundays are a bad night for our family. I'll be honest, I'm glad to have my Sunday nights back. Given the pace of ministry, and all that the weekend holds - not to mention the NFL schedule - Sunday nights are just not a great night for our family to meet with our group.
6. My house is not a great place for groups to meet - especially with children.

All in all, I feel that our Life on Purpose group was a success. We enjoyed it, and I feel that the group itself was very worth-while.

As we look at the future with campaigns like this, and even how we're helping newly formed groups transition into more established groups, we're in the process of developing a resource to help groups make that transition - with or without a host in place. We're calling that resource, Continuing the Journey, and will be available for groups in early 2011.